Costumeless? Try These Beauty-Based Halloween Looks
You probably came up with the perfect Halloween costume sometime around July, but you probably didn’t write it down. Now you probably don’t remember the result of that summer stroke of genius.
Come Halloweekened, you’ll likely find yourself struggling to find time for a Party City run. If you do make a trip to the Halloween Holy Land, you’ll find that the costume choices will have dwindled to different iterations of sexy nurse. Yikes.
There is a solution to this age-old dilemma, folks! And it lies in your makeup collection!
Before you click away—no, I’m not referring to rock-bottom, day-of methods like using red lipstick on the corner of your mouth to look like vampire blood or fashioning a nose and a set of whiskers out of eyeliner. (No judgement, we’ve all been there.)
Rather, the following five looks will have your friends saying, “Oh yeah, I see what you did there.” You probably won’t win the costume contest, but at least you will look like you put some thought into your look. And isn’t that what Halloween is all about? You know, aside from the free candy?
Each one of these beauty-based costumes can be applied in 30 minutes or less, and all you need to do is search through your makeup stash, or raid your friend’s, to see what you’re working with. No professional kits or makeup artists were involved in the making of these videos. If we can do it, so can you.
Billie Eilish—When the Party’s Over
In case haven’t seen the BTS footage from the When the Party’s Over music video, Billie Eilish created the illusion of crying black tears by subjecting herself to the use of a tubing system that dispensed murky liquid into her eyes and down her face. She later posted a photo of one of her clearly irritated, black-stained eyes on Instagram with the caption, “just so yall know how real that video was. shit stung like a mf.”
Hopefully I haven’t scared you away from this option because this look can be achieved pain-free with the help of some makeup basics. The “tear” mixture dries quickly, so you won’t have to worry about getting makeup all over the place.
Application steps: Grab loose black pigment or scrape some product out of a black pressed shadow. Add a small splash of water to your powder of choice and mix them together so that you have a watery paste. Using a flat foundation brush, sweep the mixture on your face, starting from your tear ducts and ending on your collarbone, allowing the watery blend to drip naturally. Once this base layer has dried, intensify the color by topping it with strokes of black liquid eyeliner. Using the same eyeliner, underline your lower lash line and around your tear ducts, then line your waterline with a black pencil. Finish off the look with a generous amount of mascara and a nude lipstick.
Tool kit: black eyeshadow, water, black liquid eyeliner, black eyeliner pencil, mascara, nude lipstick
Time required: 15 minutes
Style points: oversized white t-shirt, stacked chain necklaces, long and straight blue hair parted in the middle, a glass of black liquid
TikTok e-girl
What do you get when you mix a pop punk aesthetic with a teenager who should really get off her phone? An e-girl of course! TikTok wouldn’t be TikTok if it weren’t for these edgy gals, and an e-girl wouldn’t be an e-girl if not for her blush and heart-shaped stamps. This specific look was inspired by Eve Frsr who proves time and time again that makeup is the perfect vehicle for self-expression.
Application steps: Use a concealer that is one shade lighter than your skin tone to brighten your under-eye area, then top it with a setting powder. Next, blend a matte bronzer into your crease before layering a pinky-plum shadow on top. Draw on statement winged eyeliner. Then, apply several layers of liquid blush onto your cheeks and across your nose. Mattify the liquid with a powder blush, and then stamp black hearts beneath both of your eyes. (If you don’t have stamps, just draw them on with eyeliner.) Finish off the look with some mascara and a dark purple lipstick.
Tool kit: concealer, powder, plum eyeshadow, dark liquid blush, powder blush, black liquid eyeliner, mascara, dark lipstick, heart-shaped stamp (optional)
Time required: 20 minutes
Style points: black beanie, neon-colored hair, choker necklace, band t-shirt layered over a striped long-sleeve, a smartphone
Taylor Swift—Lover Album Cover
She’s leaving her Christmas lights up ‘til January, she is in love with a London Boy, and snakes and stones never broke her bones. Lover has proven to be a prosperous era for T Swizzle, and though Red will always be her best album in my eyes, the Lover album cover did gift us with a pretty iconic look.
This costume is perfect for last-minute plans as it’s pretty identifiable and only requires a few minutes to complete—depending on how well you can draw a heart, of course.
Application steps: Using an eyeshadow brush, sketch the outline of a large heart around your right eye with red or pink lipstick. Once the general shape is laid down, retrace the heart with the lipstick bullet. Layer glitter on top of the lipstick heart, apply the same red lipstick to your lips and slap on a quick coat of mascara.
Tool kit: red lipstick, glitter paste, mascara
Time required: 7 minutes
Style points: tips of hair dip-dyed blue, side-swept bangs, light blue t-shirt
Post Malone
Not a fan of Posty’s face tattoos? He doesn’t care; he’s living it up in St. Tropez well aware that his tats have made for the ultimate signature look. All you need is a reference photo, an eyeliner, and around 10 minutes to go to town.
Pro tip—find the most recent reference photo possible. Post Malone is forever updating his face tattoo collection.
Application steps: Use a black liquid eyeliner to draw “Stay Away” in cursive on top of your right eyebrow. Draw a sword that extends from your right temple down to the hallow of your cheek. Write “Always” under your right eye and “Tired” under your left eye in cursive. Draw a smiley face with Xs for eyes to the right of “Always” and an outline of the Playboy bunny logo under that. Draw two squiggly, horizontal lines on your forehead with smaller, straight lines punctuating where the squiggly lines separate from one another. On your left temple, draw a bunch of short, curved lines extending outwards from your hairline.
Tool kit: black liquid eyeliner
Time required: 12 minutes
Style points: chipped black nail polish, mustache, (fake) cigarette behind your ear, can of bud light (if you’re of age)
Bratz Doll
This year’s Bratz makeup challenge reminded us of the most stylish toys of the early aughts, and the girlz who have a passion for fashion have returned to serve us up a heaping dose of nostalgia. (I can still hear my mom and god mother debating about the feminist implications of the scantily clad dolls. Ah, those were the days.)
This costume is slightly more time consuming and requires a little more skill, but as long as you have some makeup wipes on hand to clean up mistakes, you should be able to pull this one off.
Application steps: Use a black eyeliner to draw a cat-eye-shaped line above your crease. Connect it to a line extended from your lash line. Above the outer-third of the new crease line, apply a dark pink shadow, and blend out any harsh edges. Pop a light pink inside of the outline you created. Sharpen the eyeshadow just outside of the eyeliner by wiping away with a makeup wipe. Highlight your brow bone with white eyeliner and blend it out. Then, apply the white eyeliner to your waterline and lower lash line. Draw a black line beneath the white and connect it to your winged eyeliner. Draw on three lashes extending from your lower lash line on each side, and thicken your winged eyeliner, making sure that it extends all the way to your inner corner. Apply a pair of false lashes. Contour your nose to give the illusion of a nose so small that you would have to breath exclusively from your mouth, and highlight the tip of your nose with the white eyeliner. Use a lipliner to outline overdrawn lips that extend outwards in the corners. Fill in this line with a liquid lipstick, and highlight the center of your lips with a white eyeshadow.
Tool kit: black liquid eyeliner, maroon eyeshadow, light pink eyeshadow, white eyeliner stick, mascara, plum-toned blush, contour powder, red-toned lip liner, dark pink liquid lipstick
Time required: 30 minutes
Style points: pleather tube-top, newsboy cap, skinny jeans, hoop earrings, a fashion magazine
Happy Spooky Season! Stay safe this Halloweekend, ghouls.
Huge shoutout to all of the people who made this post possible. Thank you for helping me with makeup application, modeling and filming, and for donating your supplies and time. Much love and appreciation to Caitlyn Mae Araña, Jessie Barrett, Fallon Carey, César Ramos and Ariton Sefedini.
Music from https://bensound.com